Google Asks For $4 Million In Legal Fees From Oracle

from the sliding-backwards dept

Having lost its patent/copyright case against Google in somewhat spectacular fashion, Oracle is now facing the possibility of having to also pay Google over $4 million in legal fees. Google has submitted its calculation of legal fees that it's seeking from Oracle, and it totals up to $4,030,669. Of course, this case is heading for appeal, so this number may be meaningless. However, it does suggest that Oracle -- which once seemed to believe this case might bring it billions of dollars -- may quickly discover that it's costing an awful lot instead...

Reader Comments

Where

yes where will they get the money from, well they will just have to find someone who has developed something similar to one of there other patents and sue them to make up for the millions they have lost.

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Everything can be patented. It is just a case of making the wording sufficiently vague, but at the same time seem specific. It is an art writing a good troll-patent, but it is not an impossible task to get it to be a court-winner, with the right judge etc.

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4 million

I could twist this and say $4.3 million US is like a drop into the perverbial ocean of piss in Google's budget. They are a muti-billion dollar cooperation. Google asking this of Oracle shows they are just out to punish anyone for suing them.

Re: 4 million

Argument fail. 4 million may be 'a drop into the perverbial ocean' for them money wise, but it's still a good chunk of money they had to pay out for legal fees caused by a bogus lawsuit, so of course they'd want to get that money back.

Alternatively, they could be trying to set a precedent for there being an actual punishment for patent trolling, instead of the nothing(or if the judge is really mad, a sternly worded rebuke for bringing the case up) there is now.

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It was a jury trial. Both companies can afford the legal fees. If Google asked of this during the hearings, then there would have been precedent for punishing other patent trolls. This is more like a counter suit.

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It is pretty standard to ask for lawyers fees in these things. Don't know why it matters to you, anyways. $4 mill is nothing to either of these companies. That's like a $40 speeding ticket for most everyone else.

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Hence my "it's a perverbial drop in an ocean of piss", as it is quite unnecessary for google to ask of this. No matter how someone twists it, is it really necessary to ask someone to pay your legal fees after a jury based civil trial where you not only won in a sufficient way? It should be a fine to the plantif for a frivolous lawsuit if the plantif looses. That fine goes to the court in the form of legal fees. Since they both refused to settle, it went to jury and neither of then should get the others' money.

Re: 4 million

And Oracle damn well should be punished. It was a frivolous lawsuit where Oracle was trying to use patents they bought to cash in on Google's success. The fewer lawsuits like this happen, the less innovation will be held back.

Only 4 million...

$4m for a first instance decision? And I thought legal costs in the UK were high. Come on, people, this is getting downright silly; whatever happened to justice being fair, blind, accessible and all those things?

Also, $2.9m of that is apparently "Fees for exemplification and the costs of making copies of any materials where the copies are necessarily obtained for use in the case." - That's one expensive photocopier they've got there.

Irrational

Anyone else remember when they were auctioning off those Nortel patents, and Google began bidding multiples of irrational numbers? I can't help but wonder if their new $4,030,669 amount is somehow linked to more creative math.

Re: Irrational

I'd doubt it, since this is not an arbitrary number invented by Google, but is simply the sum of their costs. Even if they are Google, I do not believe they were able to engineer their costs so the total would add up to an interesting number.

Re: Irrational

The only way that might have a chance of working is if Google specifically chose to exclude certain legal expenses in order to bring the number down to an interesting one. Even then they'd be taking a chance on how a judge might interpret that action if discovered.